Rio Tinto employees report rise in bullying, sexual assault
Al Jazeera
Half of survey respondents also say mining giant’s workplace culture has improved ‘a lot’ or ‘a little’.
More than one-third of workers at Rio Tinto experienced bullying in the previous 12 months, a progress review has found, nearly three years after the mining giant pledged to tackle pervasive sexism and racism in the workplace.
Among the nearly 12,000 surveyed Rio Tinto employees, 39 percent reported being bullied, up from 31 percent in 2021, the report commissioned by the British-Australian company showed on Wednesday.
Female employees were more likely to say they experienced bullying.
Half of the women surveyed reported such experiences, compared with 36 percent of men, up from 36 percent of women and 29 percent of men, respectively, in 2021.
The rise in bullying against women was partly due to “increasing retaliation in the form of gendered bullying as a response to Rio Tinto’s efforts to promote gender diversity and inclusion,” the report said.
